


the little things that live in the trees

by words-writ-in-starlight (Gunmetal_Crown)



Series: a softer animorphs [1]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Book 1: The Invasion, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Spoilers for Book 23: The Pretender, UPDATE: now with bonus Tobias angst, also like...if you don't already know that Elfangor dies i can't help you, but in case you don't, but this is book 1 and no one gets fucking dismembered, i mean who am i kidding if you're reading animorphs fic you definitely know about Tobias' parents, no y'all this is literally just canon from Elfangor's POV I'm sorry, so we can all agree it's BARELY canon-typical right?, spoilers for the thing, yes meghan those tags are especially for you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-22 15:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9613484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gunmetal_Crown/pseuds/words-writ-in-starlight
Summary: Our love is a forest fire and we are the little things that live in the trees.  (Today is the most exciting day of our lives.)Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, Prince of the Andalite Fleet, makes a desperate gamble to save Loren's planet, and cements his place in history.





	1. what is hard to endure

**Author's Note:**

> ...soooooo.
> 
> Do I have not one, not two, but three pending WIP fics? Yes. Do I have homework I blew off tonight? Indeed I do. Do I have a novel I should be working on? _Abso-fucking-lutely._ But here we are anyway.

Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul is a lot of things—has been a lot of things, in his life.  A student, prince, a lost soldier, a killer, a deserter, an Andalite, a human, a brother, a husband…a father, briefly.  Now he’s dying.

Well, he’s not dying just yet.  But he’s no fool, and he knows when he’s run down all his last chances.

 _Aximili-kala_ , he thinks, both hearts aching as he watches the Dome hit the atmosphere, scarred with Dracon fire.  His eager baby brother, all gangly legs and quick mind—Elfangor should have granted his request, brought him to the battle.  Aximili would be dying either way, but it hurts like a blade in the ribs to think of him alone and frightened in the crashing Dome.  At least if Aximili was on board his fighter, Elfangor could take his hand and let him hide against his shoulder, like he did as a child afraid of a storm.

Aximili is the last in a long line of losses, a sharp, clean pain unlike the tangled mess of grief for Loren and his never-son, but far more immediate than the loss of the Fleet.  Elfangor can’t see a single other fighter yet flying, and his—well.

That last blast did more harm than he’d thought.  The damaged oxygen filter means he has exactly the air left in the cabin, and for once it’s not his biggest problem.  He can hear War Prince Alloran in the back of his mind, lecturing him and Arbron about how air is _always_ the biggest problem on a starship, but he thinks even the gruff old veteran would agree with him now.

Elfangor’s biggest problem isn’t the air.  It’s the burns all up one flank and half of his chest, from when the navigation console exploded outright.  It was tidy, more flame than shrapnel, nothing that threatened the precious integrity of his fighter, but the burns are serious.  Elfangor is on all four hooves, the fighter still precariously under his control, but he can already feel the constant shriek of pain starting to sap his strength.

He doesn’t go in much for aim, when he lands.  He sees the coast below him, water and land meeting in a ragged curve, and the sole thought that rises through the fog of pain is _Loren_.  It’s not a decision, to guide the fighter down toward the land.  She wouldn’t know him, even if through some statistical anomaly he managed to land right in her backyard, but the impulse is irresistible.  So Elfangor points the nose of his ship down, toward roughly the place where Loren called home when he knew her, and looks for an empty place to land.

The children take him off guard.  Elfangor sees them before he touches down, five figures small in the lights of his ship, but he’s committed by now and they’ve seen him anyway.  Besides, his vision is starting to go grey as his hearts thunder and his burns scream with every movement, and he doesn’t honestly know if he could make it to another landing site.

So he lands and, through the surviving viewscreens, watches that distinctly human range of expressions as they’re confronted with aliens for the first time.  There’s one, a boy with middling-pale hair and the skinny look of someone in need of a few square meals, who steps forward fearlessly to speak to him, in a loud, clear voice. 

“Please come out,” the boy says for a second time, hands outstretched.  “We won’t hurt you.”

Elfangor doesn’t quite know what it is, but the boy is familiar.  There’s something about him that makes Elfangor absolutely sure that he’s telling the truth, and without thinking twice, Elfangor answers.  <I know.>

There’s a furor among the children outside his ship, and Elfangor remembers, with the dim jolt of surprise that suggests his wound has cost him more than he thought, that they won’t have heard thoughtspeech before.  It’s a relief—they’re not Controllers, at the very least.

The boy speaks again, as loud and clear as before.  “Can you come out?”  Something about his bold, direct approach to the arrival of an alien reminds Elfangor sharply of Loren, the way she used to stare him down and _dare_ him to disagree with her.

<Yes,> Elfangor says, bracing one hand against the nearest bulkhead when taking a step almost sends him tumbling to the ground.  <Do not be frightened,> he adds stiffly, after a moment.

“We won’t be frightened,” the bold boy says.

Elfangor barely remembers palming open the hatch of his ship, blinking grey spots away from his eyes.  His mind clears to the sound of the boy’s voice.

“Hello,” the boy half-breathes, gentle, and Elfangor starts at the wide, wild way he bares his teeth.  It’s been so long since he saw someone smile in the human way—not since Loren, and he tries not to think about her smile too often—and now all five of these children are beaming at him.  It’s a shock.

<Hello.>

They say something, a shy chorus, but Elfangor doesn’t hear it over the pounding quadruple beat of his heart.  His legs go weak and he stumbles, a desperate attempt to regain his footing.  He doesn’t quite manage it, and falls to the ground.  The boy, the one with the familiar stance in the face of the unknown, tries in vain to catch him, hold him up.

“Look!” one of them cries, a short young girl with dark skin and hair so curly it crinkles close against her skull, like Loren’s best friend.  “He’s hurt.”

Elfangor almost laughs.  <Yes.  I am dying.>  It’s a relief to say it out loud.

One of the others, a boy not much taller than the girl with long dark hair wild around his face, pushes forward, already talking.  “Can we help you?  We can call and ambulance or something?”

“We can bandage that wound,” the girl says, business-like and immediately shifting into a competent, ready attitude.  “Jake,” she says, half-turning to the tallest boy, a dark-haired child with broad shoulders, already starting to grow into his full height, “give me your shirt.  We can tear it up and make bandages.”

It hurts, to shut down their earnest desire to help.  It’s clear that they would do it in a moment, that the shorter boy would sprint all the way back to a phone to get help for an alien and that the taller one would strip the shirt off his back without hesitation if it would help to save Elfangor’s life.  Elfangor had forgotten this part of humanity, the way they throw themselves at a problem, all determination and heart and hope.  It might be his favorite thing about this planet.  <No,> he says quietly.  <I will die.  The wound is fatal.>

“NO!” the tall boy, Jake, half-shouts.  His voice is deeper than Elfangor expected, more adult, and more authoritative, but the look on his face is young, and scared.  “You can’t die.  You’re the first alien ever to come to Earth.  You can’t die.”  He’s upset, almost tearful, and the others seem just as distraught, the bold boy who had spoken first almost trembling with it, the slender blonde girl who had stayed silent clenching her fists tight at her sides.

Elfangor has made a lot of snap decisions in his life.  Not all of them have been good, every last one has gambled everything on a single roll of the dice, to borrow an Earth phrase.  Between one heartsbeat and another, Elfangor sifts through his options and seizes on the only one he can see.  This, dragging these children into the war, is the most unforgivable act of his life, and he knows it, but…  His death is superfluous, another Andalite warrior lost to the onrushing Yeerk tide, but with the Fleet broken, this planet is doomed.  This beautiful blue-green world.

 _Loren’s_ world.

He can’t let Loren’s world burn.  Their story has been a forest fire, but he won’t let it end like one, all ashes and death.

Elfangor doesn’t think.  He just speaks. 

There’s a lot of not-thinking over the next few minutes, as Elfangor spills the truth of the war, of the terrible battle lost in the stars, and the boy with the blond hair and the clear, steady eyes stands beside him the whole time.  And then he does the truly insane and tells them to bring him the Escafil device.

There’s a beat of silence and the five human children look around at each other, and all eyes land on Jake, the broad-shouldered boy.  The back of Elfangor’s mind, still an _aristh_ after all this time, provides the label _Prince Jake_ , and he’s too tired and weak to argue.

“Go ahead,” the bold boy says, breaking the silence and looking away from (Prince) Jake, back to Elfangor on the ground.  “I want to stay with him.”

He puts a hand on Elfangor’s shoulder and kneels on the dirt beside him, and Elfangor gets a good look at his eyes.  They’re soft and brown and rather sad, with amber points of light around the edge of the pupil, and desperately familiar.

Elfangor is too stunned, too numb, to speak, to even reach out to the boy’s cheek.  He wonders what his name is, this boy whose eyes match perfectly to those of Alan Fangor, the eyes Elfangor had chosen on a whim because Loren remarked that she liked the gold flecks.  The boy offers him a smile, shaky but real, and Elfangor struggles to order his thoughts, even slightly.

The return of (Prince) Jake with the Escafil device shakes Elfangor out of his thoughts, and catches the end of what the boy is saying.

“—the box.”

<Thank you,> Elfangor says.

“I, um…was that your family?  That picture?” (Prince) Jake asks, uneasy, and Elfangor remembers the hologram of himself with Aximili and their parents.  He’d forgotten that it was there.

He can’t quite keep one of his stalk eyes from drifting over to look at the boy—Loren’s boy.  <Yes.>

“I’m real sorry,” (Prince) Jake says quietly, helpless.

Elfangor takes a deep breath.  It hurts, sends pain sparkling over the burns, and he pushes it away, pushes it _all_ away, to tell them about the morphing power, the one weapon he can give them.

 _Loren, forgive me_ , he thinks in the most private part of his mind as he presses his palm to one side of the Escafil device, the Yeerks closing in overhead.  He’s dragging her son, _their_ son, into the war that destroyed them, because he can’t think of another way to save her world.  She would hate him for this.  She would be _right_ to hate him for this, for all that the boy seems all too ready to fight for his planet.

Elfangor looks up, at the five human children clustered around him, and gives them the only gift he has—a lie.  <Do not be afraid,> he says, and triggers the Escafil device.

And then it is chaos, one last desperate warning about the time limit as the shadow of Visser Three closes in, and the children run.  Except for the boy.  Elfangor’s son.

He stays on the ground, kneeling there, and takes Elfangor’s hand, clutching it tight in his strong human fingers.  Elfangor reached up and rested his other hand against the boy’s cheek, a kiss.  The touch is enough to let him pour all the knowledge he has into the boy’s mind—Tobias, he catches the name at the edge of a thought, and he clutches it close to his hearts.  It’s all Elfangor can do for him, the boy he should have known all his life, raised and loved and protected always.

<Be careful, Tobias- _kala_ ,> Elfangor whispers as the boy rocks back under the onslaught of information.  He doesn’t know if Tobias hears him.  It’s probably better that he doesn’t.

 _Oh, Loren_ , Elfangor thinks as Tobias runs, and the Blade ship sweeps over them all.  _You should be proud of our son.  I’m so sorry._


	2. what is sweet to remember

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm tired and I've done Too Much biochem today, so I stresswrote some Tobias angst. As you do.
> 
> Also, am I the only person frankly dismayed by the lack of Ax-teaching-Tobias-about-Andalites fic on the interwebs? I'm doing this for all of us.
> 
> *confetti* Cultural heritage matters to me, folks.

Tobias cocks his head, looking down at the elegant blue shape beneath him.  Ax steps through a battle form on the ground—it’s nothing like human martial arts, Ax’s arms held loose in front of him but unused, all the movement centered on his agile hooves and the bullwhip speed of his tail.  He moves through the steps apparently without effort, the only giveaway his heavy breathing when he stops.  The regular sharp _fwip-CRACK_ of his tail is muffled by the forest, somewhat, but Ax keeps all four eyes out, and Tobias keeps watch from the trees, just in case. 

It’s soothing, to watch Ax train—less so, lately, but Tobias is working on that.  He’s not going to tell Ax to _stop_ , just because Tobias is figuring some things out.  They’re at _war_ , here.

<Tobias, are you well?> Ax asks, his thought-speech a little strained as he comes to a halt, forelegs braced as if shaky with exertion.  He looks up at Tobias with his main eyes, warm and mildly concerned.  Tobias has a flash, bright and sudden, of another set of Andalite eyes, glassy with pain but inexpressibly sad and kind as they looked into his weak human ones.  <You seem unusually quiet.>

<I’m good, Ax-man.>  Tobias ruffles his feathers, preening absently at the shoulder of his left wing for something to do.  <Just thinking about some stuff.  You done for the day?>

Ax shifts his weight, daintily stepping toward Tobias’ tree, and nods—the human gesture looks odd on him, with his stalk eyes held in place and the absent-minded twirling of his tail blade, like someone stretching out after a run.  He looks almost fidgety, as if attempting to word something correctly, and, after a moment, Tobias sighs.

<Spit it out, Ax-man, before you hurt yourself.>

<I do not have a—this is metaphor again?>  He sounds pleased with himself, and Tobias grins inwardly.  Teaching Ax how to ‘speak Earthling,’ as Marco likes to put it, is a full-time job.  Andalites don’t seem to have much of a concept of figurative speech.

<Yeah,> Tobias confirms, amused.  <It means…just say what you’re trying to say.>

Ax is quiet for another few moments, then he says, all at once as if concerned he might be stopped, <You have been anxious when I train, or during the morning ritual, for some time now.  Have I done something to upset you?  You don’t need to come with me, if you would prefer otherwise.>

Tobias stops himself from sighing again and drops from his high branch to one closer to Ax’s eye level, a soft rustle of wings accompanying the shallow swoop.  <I know I don’t need to come, I do recon and go hunting instead of coming with you all the time.  Makes me feel better to keep an eye on you and make sure no one shows up wondering why a weird blue deer is doing whip exercises in the woods.>

Ax’s main eyes narrow, suspicious.  <I’ve noticed a trend in humans to answer only the part of a question they wish to answer.>

Teaching Ax the finer points of English idioms is tricky, but he picks up on human behavior a lot faster than Tobias is maybe strictly comfortable with.  <I’m just trying to figure some stuff out, since—since my birthday,> Tobias says, ruffling his feathers again. 

There’s a longer silence, this time, and Tobias winces—internally, of course.  He should have kept his mouth shut.  He’s brought it up once or twice with Rachel—or, to be more accurate, Rachel’s pointedly asked questions until he admits something—but otherwise everyone has seemed eager to let the issue of his family go.  Ax doesn’t need to deal with this mess.

<It’s nothing, Ax,> Tobias says, managing to sound dismissive. 

Ax huffs out a breath, stomps a hoof, irritated.  <It’s _not_ nothing, > he half-snaps.

<Hey, whoa, I’m sorry I brought it up,> Tobias says, flaring his wings faintly before he gets the flight instinct under control.  He keeps expecting to reach a point where he’s had his life threatened enough that his heart doesn’t drop when one of his friends is angry with him.  It’s not any better in his hawk body than it was as a human.  <I didn’t mean to tick you off.>

<I am not _ticked off_ ,> Ax says, sharp.  He opens his hands, helpless, and Tobias is briefly, desperately grateful that his beak and eyes can’t show shock like a human face.  <I have already broken many of the Andalite laws against telling other races our secrets, but…I would tell you anything you asked.>

<What?>

<You are my _family_. >  Ax is almost vicious in his determination, and Tobias feels like his ears are ringing, as if he’s stood too close to an explosion and paid the price. 

<Ax-man…I’m not much good at being people’s family.>  A slideshow is running behind Tobias’ eyes, a highlights reel of his aunt, distant and uninterested, and his uncle, hot-tempered and perpetually tipsy.  And his ‘cousin,’ of course.  With his track record, Tobias is pretty sure the world is safer if he never claims another relative again.

<I don’t have anyone else,> Ax says simply.  <My brother is dead, my mother and father and cousins are lightyears away.  You and the others are all I have, here.>

Tobias doesn’t have anything to say with that, doesn’t think there _is_ anything to say to that.   <I know the feeling,> he mutters at last.  <Just don’t expect me to be any good at this.>

Ax laughs outright at that, a brief telepathic snicker that speaks volumes about how much he’s loosened up since coming to Earth.  <Noted.>  He pauses, quiet and awkward again, before adding, <Do you have any specific questions?>

Tobias ducks his head to preen the already-tidy feathers at his chest, uneasy under Ax’s steady eyes.  The idea of being part-Andalite—of being _Elfangor’s_ son—makes him feel strange, almost sick, but beneath the surface storm of confusion and alarm is a tight coil of something warm and soft and _hurting_. 

He doesn’t like it much.

He likes it more than he should.

He moves on to the feathers at his right wing to buy himself time, considering.  There’s a lot he wants to know.  The year and change of nerves and paranoia says he should ask about tactics, the shadow of the boy who was bullied at school and hassled at home says he should ask what Elfangor was _like_ , but…

There’s a vague memory, almost-imagined, of a hand on his cheek and a lifetime of information pouring through his mind, and a voice.

<What does _kala_ mean? > Tobias asks at last.

Ax tilts his head, inquisitve, but answers readily.  <It’s a diminutive term, added to the end of a name to show affection.  It’s for a parent addressing a child, or a much-older sibling to a younger.  My brother used it for me, and so did my parents.  Where did you hear it?>

Tobias flares his wings, a small movement more out of unease than anything else, and gives a quick shake of his head.  <I thought I’d imagined it.  He called me that, before—before.  Tobias- _kala_. >

The best thing about Ax, as far as Tobias is concerned, is the fact that he doesn’t often feel the need to push.  He doesn’t question him, merely nods.

<I was thinking about going to the lake,> Ax says after a moment.  <Would you like to come?>

Tobias shakes his head again.  <I’m all right, Ax-man.  I’ll see you later, all right?>

<Good flying,> Ax says, and doesn’t try to stop Tobias when he opens his wings and drops from his branch, swooping up and away.

Once he’s high enough that Ax is lost among the trees—it’s work to gain all that altitude, but the burning ache of his muscles helps clear his head—Tobias steadies himself into a long glide toward nowhere in particular. 

 _Tobias-kala_ , he remembers, dredging up the dim echo of Elfangor’s deep, soft voice.  It feels a little like family.

**Author's Note:**

> ...there's gonna be more in this series.
> 
> The titles of the chapters come from the ritual that Ax teaches Tobias in Book 33.
> 
> Tumblr [here](http://words-writ-in-starlight.tumblr.com/), but I'm also busy AF and my country is on fire and being ruled by a loud yam with a complex, so I'm about two thousand years behind on asks.
> 
> EDIT: FUCK-ALL MONTHS LATER AND I FINALLY FIXED AN ENTIRE PARAGRAPH OF TENSE ERRORS SORRY Y'ALL


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